


The Ultimate Challenge

by Goldy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1940571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Parallel worlds, the end of the universe—yeah, I say we’ve overcome our fair share of challenges. What’s a wedding, in the grand scheme of things?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ultimate Challenge

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to scornedsaint for the beta!

“Oh, my god,” Rose says, gripping his hand so tightly he’s worried that she’s cutting off his not-so-superior Time Lord/human hybrid blood circulation. “I think she’s gone mad.”

Her eyes are on Jackie, standing in the middle of the reception hall with a clipboard and a walkie-talkie. Around her, caterers, wedding planners, and Torchwood grunts hurry to fulfill her every order.

“The power has gone to her head or something,” Rose whispers, partly in awe, as Jackie demands that the flower decorations be taken out and redone in purple. “See,” she explains to the Doctor in hushed tones, “she never got to have this sort of wedding. Well, we were there, remember? I think she might be overcompensating.”

The Doctor tries to look sympathetic, but a movement from the Torchwood team catches his eye. He cocks his head to the side. “Are they putting alien detectors in our wedding cake?” he says, appalled. “Why would anyone do that?”

Rose chews nervously on her thumbnail, looking appropriately offended on his behalf. Unfortunately, it’s Jackie that answers.

“I know what sort of trouble you two attract,” she says, making him jump. When did she get so close? She surveys them both up and down. If possible, Rose holds his hand even tighter. “Even stuck here on Earth, it’s like you can’t go two minutes without fighting for your lives. You might not want to settle down, but you will have a nice, normal wedding.”

The Doctor watches as the Torchwood team works to secure the entrances and exits, scanning each doorway for hidden alien tech. He loosens his tie. "Right," he says. "Normal."

He looks away from Jackie’s accusing gaze, his eyes falling on Tony, curled up in a corner of the room playing a videogame. As if sensing the Doctor’s stare, Tony glances up, meeting the Doctor’s gaze. They share a pained smile of understanding.

“Pete says the legal documents are going to be tricky,” Jackie continues, drawing the Doctor’s attention again.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I suppose you’ll be going by ‘Doctor?’”

“It is my name, Jackie.”

“It’s not a proper name, though, is it?” Jackie says. “What about John Smith? You could go by that just for the ceremony, couldn’t you?”

“I’m not getting married to Rose as John Smith,” he says indignantly at the same time as Rose says, “Forget it, Mum. I’m marrying _the Doctor_. I’m not gonna pretend he’s someone else just ‘cause there’ll be hundreds of dad’s business acquaintances watching. It’s about us.”

He and Rose turn and grin at each other while Jackie tuts.

“Doctor it is, then,” she says. She pauses. “You’ll have to get a tux.”

“Right,” he says. “I used to have a good tux. Stuck in another universe now, I suppose.”

“And try and get some sleep,” Jackie says, peering into his face. “You look like you’ve aged ten years since we took you in.”

“Thank you, Jackie.”

Without warning, she breaks into a wide smile and flings her arms around him. “Oh, I’m so happy for you both,” she says. She pulls away and kisses him. “You’ll take care of each other. You always do.”

The Doctor makes an “oomf” noise and flails his arms. Jackie’s hold on him barely wavers.

Rose sounds amused. “Mum, don’t smother him, yeah? I sort of like having him around.”

Jackie abruptly releases him and the Doctor stumbles back a few steps, wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. Why? Why does she _do_ that?

With rising terror, he notices that she's beginning to look a little misty eyed. Thankfully, just as the Doctor's contemplating trying to hide behind the streamers, there's a loud crash from the centre of the room.

It’s Tony. He’s got two fingers stuck into the icing of the wedding cake while alarm bells blare around him. In seconds, the Torchwood team has the table surrounded.

“Back away from the cake with your hands in the air,” says the leader. “Nice and slow.”

Tony drops a wink in the Doctor’s direction. “I was just testing it,” he says. He sticks the fingers into his mouth, swallows, and then gives them a thumb's up.

"It's good!"

“TONY PETER TYLER,” Jackie hollers. “WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Then she turns her stare on the Torchwood grunts. “And who the hell do you think you are, surrounding my son?”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” begins the leader. “It’s the security measures in place—”

“I’ll show you where you can put your security measures,” Jackie says. She reaches Tony and grabs him by the ear.

“Ow! Mum!”

The Doctor beams at Tony fondly. “I knew there was a reason why I liked him.”

Rose raises her voice to be heard over the pandemonium. “He looks up to you, you know. I think it has mum terrified.”

“Oh, he’ll turn out fine,” the Doctor says. He waves his hands knowingly. “Besides, a little bit of trouble here and there isn’t so bad. Eh, Rose Tyler?”

He bumps her with his shoulder. Rose smiles and then frowns at him. “You’ve got Mum’s lipstick on your mouth,” she says. He must look especially horrified because she laughs and then reaches up to press the pad of her thumb to the corner of his lips. “There, all gone.”

There’s a loud blaring, like the sound of a horn going off, and the alarms around the wedding cake finally shut off. Torchwood slowly disengages, going back to securing the entrances and exits.

Rose follows them with her eyes. “How exactly did all this happen?”

“No idea. I was hoping for something a bit less… I dunno. Ooh, llamas! Llamas would be brilliant. Why don’t we have those?”

“Don’t give her any ideas,” says Rose. “I’ll tell you what, though.” She jerks her head upwards. “I think mum's trying to hang a real zeppelin from the ceiling. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

They glance at each other with barely concealed panic. Rose moves closer to him, nestling into his side and ducking her head under his arm.

“It’ll be tough,” the Doctor says. “We’ll just have to stay close.”

“Right,” Rose says. “Face this together.”

“We’ve had worse.”

“Parallel worlds, the end of the universe—yeah, I say we’ve overcome our fair share of challenges. What’s a wedding, in the grand scheme of things?”

“No problemo,” says the Doctor. He presses a quick kiss to the top of Rose’s head and hugs her close.

“You know,” Rose begins softly, “we don’t have to do this.”

He looks down at her. “How do you mean?”

She shrugs. “I know you think it’s something I want—the wedding and all that. But it’s not, not really. We don’t have to go through with this, yeah? We don’t even have to get married, if you don’t want.”

“What?” he says, blinking at her. Granted, things _had_ progressed rather quickly. He’d barely let it slip that he and Rose were getting married when Jackie had the caterers rung up on the line. A thought strikes him, “Do _you_ not want to get married?”

“No, it’s not that,” Rose says. A frown furrows her brow. “I just…” she blows out a breath. “I just don’t want you leaving, is all.”

Now he’s _really_ staring at her. He releases his hold on her. “Why would I leave?”

She plays with one of her earrings, gaze studiously drawn to the floor. “Look, I know you think that a wedding is all decorations and cake and presents—”

“Well, it _is_ ,” he says. “And frankly, I don’t see anything wrong with that. Also, the flowers happen to be rather lovely.” He pauses. “That’s the Donna in me talking. You know that, right?”

She gives him a strained smile. “You do realize that we’re going to have to get up in front of hundreds of people and says our vows.”

“So?” he says.

“ _So_ ,” Rose says, like he’s an idiot, “it took you _years_ and becoming half-human just to tell me you loved me. D'you know what human wedding vows are like? Do you really think you'll want to get up in front of hundreds of people you don't know and make some overly sentimental promise?"

"Well, we could skip them, couldn't we?"

"Have you come within two feet of my mother this morning?"

“I see what you mean,” he says worriedly. He scratches at one ear. “How many people?”

Rose continues without answering, “Then there are the speeches. God only knows what mum will say when she’s had a few glasses of champagne. _And_ ,” Rose drops her voice to a conspirational whisper, “we’ll probably be expected to dance.”

“Dance?”

Rose nods seriously and he begins to reconsider his stance on weddings.

“Rose,” he says in a strangled voice.

“I know,” she says. She finds his hand again and squeezes it. “I don’t really fancy going through this either.”

He draws in a breath and pulls himself together. With forced cheer, he says, “Still. Could be worse.” Rose glances at him questioningly. “Listen, I’m not going anywhere. It’s going to take more than your mum and a zeppelin to scare me off. I’m not going to leave, Rose. Never, ever.”

“Never, ever,” Rose echoes.

They grin at each other. “Why would you think that I would…?” the Doctor says, feeling himself deflate a little. Rose worries he might take off on her? Really? _He’s_ the one who no longer has a TARDIS, who can’t show her planets and different time periods. He’s the one who forced her to stay in this world. If anything, he should be worried that Rose will wake up one day and decide he really is only a mere copy of his former self.

Rose looks away. “You did leave me on a beach,” she says simply.

“No, I didn’t. I stayed.”

She smiles. “Yeah,” she says. “You stayed.”

She looks at him again, nibbling on her bottom lip. They gaze at each other silently.

Finally, Rose shakes her head. In a determined voice, she says, “No, I’m not going to let her do this. It’s _our_ wedding.”

He feels a flare of hope. “Yeah?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rose says firmly. “And you know what, Doctor? If you want llamas, we’ll have llamas.”

“And oh! How about those acrobats who juggle flaming torches?” he asks hopefully. "They're brilliant."

“Anything you want,” Rose says. She draws herself up to her full height, eyes hardening with steely determination. “It’ll be a small ceremony. With llamas. And acrobats." She pauses. "And I’m not wearing a dress.”

“Takes too long to get off, anyway,” the Doctor agrees.

“Still like to see you in a tux, though.”

At that moment, she could have asked him to walk across hot coals in his bare feet. “Of course.”

“Right,” Rose says. She drops his hand and raises her voice, “Mum!”

Jackie looks up from the flower display. Rose marches over to her, arms folded across her chest. What follows is a short, but heated conversation with both of them gesturing angrily with their arms.

The Doctor figures he’s better off staying out of the way. Best to let Rose handle it, really.

Finally, Rose walks back to him, proud smirk on her face. “All sorted,” she says. “Mum's decided that she and Pete will renew their vows—” the Doctor feels a twinge of pity for Pete—“leaving us to plan whatever sort of ceremony we want.” Rose frowns. "Almost wonder if that's what she was hoping for the whole time, really."

“Rose Tyler,” he says proudly. “You are _amazing_.”

She beams at him. “Aren’t I just?”

He loves it when she sounds like him. He opens his arms and Rose jumps into them. He spins her around until her foot accidentally collides with one of the new flower displays. It flies through the air and lands smack in the middle of the cake.

“Whoops,” he says as the security alarms begin blaring again.

Rose laughs, arms clinging to his neck. “Collateral damage.”

“ROSE MARION TYLER,” comes Jackie’s shout. “WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

The Doctor hurriedly sets Rose down. Torchwood is all ready bearing down on them.

She moves to smooth out her rumpled shirt and then looks up at him with a mischievous smile. “Run?”

He holds out a hand. “Good idea.”


End file.
